As organizations grow in size, geographical scope, and complexity, it is increasingly apparent that sponsorship and support of communities of practice-groups whose members regularly engage in sharing and learning, based on common interests-can improve organizational performance. Although many authors assert that communities of practice create organizational value, there has been relatively little systematic study of the linkage between community outcomes and the underlying social mechanisms that are at work. To build an understanding of how communities of practice create organizational value, we suggest thinking of a community as an engine for the development of social capital. We argue that the social capital resident in communities of practice leads to behavioral changes, which in turn positively influence business performance. We identify four specific performance outcomes associated with the communities of practice we studied and link these outcomes to the basic dimensions of social capital. These dimensions include connections among practitioners who may or may not be colocated, relationships that build a sense of trust and mutual obligation, and a common languageand context that can be shared by community members. Our conclusions are based on a study of seven organizations where communities of practice are acknowledged to be creating value.

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Interactive video communication, both in conference m m s and on desktop computers, isbecoming an increasingly attractive technology, in large measurefor economic reasons. In a longitudinalfild study, the authors demonstrate, as have others, positiwjrst-order efficiency effects of this technology. That is, people can achieve the same levels ofperfomnce in video interaction as they do infnce-to-face interaction. Hmever, the authors also demonstrate some second-order diperences between face-to-face and video interaction. They show that the impressions people form of remote others are diferent from and less positive than the impressions they@ offace-to-face others, startingfrom an equal baseline. The authors also show that people make use ofdiferent kinds of information in f m i n g their impressions. They frame their results within the context of growing use of interactive video to suggest implicatwnsfor research and organizational practice. s organizational tasks and markets become more global, organizations face increasing pressure to manage geographically dis-A tributed work. Forming and sustaining a common sense of purpose and coordinating interdependencies between people who may be located thousands of miles apart is a daunting challenge. Organizations that are attempting to do this rely heavily on communication technology, using telephone, fax, and E-mail to assist with coordinating tasks 197 198 HUMAN COMMUNICATION RESEARCH / December 1995 As costs decline and technology improves, organizations are beginning to turn to videoconferencing as a way to help manage distributed work. Corporations are now installing videoconference room systems at an increasing rate and justifying them as an economical alternative to air travel. Desktop videoconferencing systems are beginning to be introduced for workstations and personal computers.Organizations believe videoconferencing has first-order efficiency effects, offering a lower cost substitution for travel and allowing people to communicate in ways that previously would have required face-to-face meetings (e.g., Svenning & Ruchinskas, 1984, p. 244). Like other communication technologies, however, this one may have second-order effects as well that result in new or altered relationships between people, groups, and organizations (Fisher, 1992;Sproull & Kiesler, 1991). This article reports an initial investigation of how videoconferencing may produce both first-order and second-order effects in organizational settings.

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The phrase “leading from behind” is borrowed from group analytic theory, an important branch of group psychology. For some, the phrase may be pejorative: an effective leader is normally in front of group members, not taking a position behind them. However, for large online Communities of Practice, leading from behind and trusting the group is an important strategy. This chapter focuses on how a leader develops the capacity to trust the group. Recognizing that groups of people are powerful and creative organisms that can be trusted is difficult for a leader. For Freud, who thought of groups as unthinking, primitive mobs and for modern managers, who are taught the value of using teams with specific objectives and limited life spans, the idea of unstructured, dispersed collections of people making decisions or taking action is an anathema. Learning to trust the knowledge of a large group takes training, practice and courage. We ground our conclusions in an empirical analysis of the leadership of one large online Community of Practice. Using archives of discussions among community members, we develop leadership principles that support the “leading from behind” approach. We use these data to suggest how managers can lead online communities to form the trusting relationships that are essential for effective knowledge sharing and innovation.